


Battle Plan

by Masu_Trout



Category: Pikmin (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Spiders, unusual friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 17:02:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13035558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masu_Trout/pseuds/Masu_Trout
Summary: The Man-at-Legs leaves its den, discovers snow, and makes a friend.





	Battle Plan

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ysavvryl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ysavvryl/gifts).



Everything hurt.

The Man-at-Legs curled itself in the base of the divot it called home, its body sunk as close to the comforting chill of the rusted metal as it could manage. The machinery woven throughout its body ran hot. Its organic body had deformed to fit the additions, but had never quite managed to accommodate that blistering warmth.

Moving hurt, so it did not move. Standing hurt, so it did not stand. Curling up like this hurt… less, and that was good enough.

Occasionally prey would fall from somewhere above, bulborbs or dweevils or snitchbugs. It ate heartily then; the few creatures that survived the drop stood little chance against the Man-at-Legs' artillery. Eating was its own sort of ache—the metal fit strangely around the arachnorb's digestive organs—but the fullness was more than worth it.

No prey had fallen for some time now, though, long enough that the Man-at-Legs was beginning to grow restless with hunger. It even took to moving occasionally. It paced the rusty floor in tight jerky circles, its mechanical half scanning up and down the floor for signs of life. (Or, for that matter, signs of death.)

The first patrol found nothing. The second patrol found nothing. The third patrol found—water, strangely, gushing up from a cracked pillar of rock planted in the corrugated metal. Had this always been here? How had it never realized?

Water was a necessity now. Before it had been changed, the moisture it sucked from its prey had been enough, but its mechanical half had to regularly vent steam to keep its cicruits from melting. Collecting water from the floor of its cavern was so much less useful than a source like this.

It poked at the geyser with ts synthetic leg to make sure it wasn't a trick. Nothing happened, except that a few cracked shards of rock fell to the ground and the water gushed up even stronger. Real, then. Water wasn't as good as food, but it was still good and—the Man-at-Legs poked at it again, first with the very tip of the cybernetic leg and then by waving an organic leg through the raging stream—it was blissfully cool. Cooler than the metal ground, cooler than anything the Man-at-Legs had ever known.

Amazing.

The arachnorb took two halting steps forward, positioning the orb of its body directly over the current's spray. Chilled water gushed across the underside of its dome, sank into the cracks where artificial met organic, spread precious cold throughout the creature's feverish body.

It felt like nothing else in the world. It was cold, it was clean, it was… 

It was lifting it off of the ground.

The Man-at-Legs scrabbled for purchase as the floor below it began to sink out of reach. Its metal leg caught on the floor, and for a moment it might almost have been able to pull itself free, but as it turned its body caught the full force of the current head on and it was lost. All it could do was pull its legs in tight and try not to smash to pieces against the cavern walls.

The creatures lurking on the upper floors that day were witness to a unique sight: a massive arachnorb curled into a sphere, rocketing upward on a geyser's force.

–

The Man-at-Legs was alive. It ran a few diagnostics to confirm what its biological sensors were telling it, then carefully untucked its legs and struggled to a standing position.

Alive was a surprise enough. Alive and unharmed (save for a few dents and a slightly battered leg) was even more unexpected. For a moment it was all the Man-at-Legs could do to stand there. Its mechanical half had no protocols for a situation like this, and the biological side was doing nothing but screaming _light! Exposed! Run! Hide!_ on an endless loop. Its turrets kept extending from its stomach only to retract once again once they realized there was no danger.

This habitat was not anything it could remember seeing. The ground underneath it was not rusted metal, the sky above was not an endless void of inky black. The world here was painted in blue and white on its visual sensors and just plain blue on its thermal sensors: an endless world of cold, stretched out endlessly around it.

Perhaps it had died, and this was merely its damaged software's last attempt at functioning. Simulating a perfect environment for the arachnorb to explore.

All around it, the terrain stretched out in a dizzying array of variety. Liquid water to its left, frozen water underneath it, poison gas wafting through the air from a line of generators nearby.

It took a step forward, unsure what exactly it ought to do, and then, for nothing but the sheer pleasure of it, dropped low to the ground and let its spherical body sink with a _puff_ into a bank of the powdery snow. It was so _cold_ , freezing cold, and even when the Man-at-Legs' broiling body begin melting the snow there was always more to take its place. It could stay crouching here forever and never feel the painful sting of heat again, never have to vent a wave of steam across its sensitive organics.

Eventually, though, its processors—and the ache of hunger—propelled it to stand at make its way forward once more. This was a larger perimeter. Perhaps now it would be able to find prey.

–

As it turned out, finding prey here was much easier too. Perhaps it really was in some strange simulation. 

All it had needed to do was clamber over the closest snow-covered hill; from there, it had heard splashing in the nearby pond, and had stepped closer to find a pair of rubbery-looking water dumples splashing frantically as they attempted to drag a dwarf red bulborb into the water.

The first of the water dumples didn't have a chance to react before the Mat-at-Legs' cannons swung down and aimed a strike at the creatures' unguarded flesh. The second, wisely, had fled.

More surprising: the dwarf red bulborb had not fled. Its leg, the Man-at-Legs had discovered with a quick scan, was injured, but not so badly that it wouldn't be able to limp away. And yet it stayed, circling nervously, darting in closer at odd moments only to cringe away when a sudden jerk of the Man-at-Legs' twitchy body surprised it.

Perhaps it was hoping for revenge? The Man-at-Legs had been programmed with some vague knowledge of the emotion, though it was unable to feel any such thing. But if its circuits lacked the capability, then surely the bulborb's little brain couldn't be equipped to handle it either. And anyhow, it didn't seem angry. It hadn't tried yet to bite. It just… lingered, curiously, just out of range of a stomping leg (though not a missile strike—seemed the creature hadn't seen or hadn't recognized the cause of the water dumple's death) but close enough that it was undoubtedly _lingering_.

It would be safest to kill it, perhaps—its logic circuits were urging it to do just that—but something in the Man-at-Legs shied back from the thought. The bulborb hadn't hurt it. Wouldn't be able to hurt it even if it wanted to. It wasn't like the prey that used to fall down into the Man-at-Legs' prison, driven wild with fear and pain. It was a curious little thing, really.

Perhaps, the Man-at-Legs decided, it could gain additional information from observing its behavior. That was a perfectly fine reason to allow such a creature to live.

The Man-at-Legs kept one sensor tuned toward the young dwarf bulborb as it examined its catch more closely. The water dumple's skin was thick, but with a little maneuvering it could get its mechanical manipulators down through it and into the flesh beneath. (Actually eating it would be another matter entirely—the arachnorb's mouth had been small even before the mechanical enhancements had sealed off part of its body, and now it was capable of taking in even less food at a time. This water dumple would keep it fed for weeks provided it could store and guard its meal for that long.)

After its first few bites, the Man-at-Legs paused. The bulborb was sniffing closer now, eyestalks drawn up with interest and its tongue hanging out. It was focused entirely on the food, drawing closer before quickly retreating again, pacing in tight circles.

Of course. It was hungry. Maybe it would go away once it had food.

The Man-at-Legs hesitated a moment—strange, how it almost didn't want the unpredictable little creature to leave—but then it tore a hunk of flesh from its meal, and, with a quick set of calculations, used its manipulators to toss it at the bulborbs feet. The creature made a little _ep!_ of suprise and delight and pounced upon the scrap. In one quick gulp, it was gone.

…Perhaps a little more wouldn't hurt. The Man-at-Legs tossed out another offering, this time not quite as far, and the bulborb darted forward to catch it. Another, and another and another, until finally the dwarf bulborb was close enough to reach out and poke should the Man-at-Legs extend a joint.

It very carefully didn't, and just as carefully willed its body not to shake or spasm. The two of them stared at each other, eyestalk to camera lens, for what was objectively 5.32 seconds and subjectively felt much longer. 

No sudden movements. No noises. _Especially_ no firing its missiles. The Man-at-Legs kept very still.

Finally the dwarf bulborb pressed closer, just enough to touch the Man-at-Legs' body, and then made a delighted little growl in the back of its throat and laid its full weight across the curve of the central orb. 

The heat, the Man-at-Legs realized. For a creature without an internal engine, one that lived out in this snow, heat had to be a resource rather than a source of suffering.

The bulborb's body blocked out the soothing cold of the snow where it touched, but the Man-at-Legs found it didn't mind. It tucked its legs a little tighter, allowing just enough space for the little bulborb to press up against as much of its circuitry as possible.

No, this one would not become prey. Arachnorbs, as a rule, did not hunt in packs, but—well, dwarf bulborbs did. Perhaps the species was on to something. 

Perhaps the Man-at-Legs could give the tactic a try.


End file.
